wierd problem with drivers and new ram??

kmansp · Feb 6, 2004, 11:08 AM

I have a compaq presario using an ati mobility card. I've been using the omega drivers for it to run my games and it's worked great. Well I recently upgraded my laptops ram from 256 to 768. As soon as I did, I kept getting a blue screen of death and it wouldn't let me in to windows unless I went in to the true safe mode, ie the words safe mode appear in each corner. I haven't seen this since my Windows ME days. Anyways, at first I thought it was incompatible ram, but after messing around, I uninstalled my video drivers and went to the original drivers. This solved the problem. This caused mixxed feelings. While certain games like warcraft3 work so much better, my frame rate on rise of nations dropped significantly. Anyways, I tried several different omega drivers including the latest, and none of those worked. I tried patje's mod tool and it did the same thing. The BSOD flashes so fast I can't read what it says, but like I said it never lets me in to windows unless I go in to safe mode. What I noticed is that when it DOES go in to safe mode, a bunch of lines going down my screen say something to the effect of "partition: c:\windows\system32\filenames. These are the same ones that the omega drivers copied in to.
So I'm at a loss and am truly bummed. I also liked the control panel a lot better. Now I have the old one which doesn't really let me change much as far as settings go for the display panel.
If ANYONE can give me some assistance on this, I would appreciate it. I HATE using these outdated drivers!!!

swimtech · Feb 6, 2004, 11:23 AM

If you can uninstall the 512M chip you added and then use the latest Omega drivers, the problem is with your laptop (?)/driver combination and is likely a Bios or obscure hardware issue.

I remember reading something somewhere about problems with some laptops that have over 512M ram installed...

Try that, if you haven't again already, and post back if possible - OK?

kmansp · Feb 6, 2004, 02:29 PM

Yeah, I tried just using the 512 chip, and still the same problem. Now, if I just use my original 256k ram I can reinstall the omega or dna drivers, but then of course what a waste!! The laptop works sooo much better with the ram, but there are now some games that won't even run now, specifically Rainbow six 3 and Splinter cell, which just don't like my laptops drivers. THose are the two games why I specifically went and downloaded the omega drivers. Plus, despite the ram, other games have a slow framerate, such as rise of nations.
The other thing is, my laptop uses my ram for its video card. It can go to 16, 32, and to 64. I've tried various settings, and I see absolutely no change in framerate. This is something I have to go in to the BIOS setting to change, too. Even though DXdiag will show 64 megs of ram for my video card, there is absolutely no difference than from when it says 16, and that's with over 700 RAM!! Is there something I'm missing here?
Thanks for your prompt reply.

If you got any pointers, I'm open to suggestions. I'm not too firmiliar with changing bios settings, and only found that out when I got my laptop repaired a few months back. Most of the items in the bios don't really explain what they do.

swimtech · Feb 6, 2004, 05:28 PM

Could you give me the Compaq Md#? These numbers are very specific, some examples follow (from Compaq's site):

» Compaq Presario 18XL2 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL3 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL4 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL191 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL192 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL280 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL380 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL381 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL390 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL481 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL482 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL483 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL484 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL485 notebook PC
» Compaq Presario 18XL580 notebook PC

Frankly, I haven't heard of any ATI Mobility Chip using onboard ram as video ram...
I'm gonna study up on your laptop...

Also, I would run a test of the ram using Memtest386 or Microsoft's memory tester to insure that the 512K chip is OK.
Links:

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

You might have other issues, such as the stock driver not uninstalling completely - have you used the Drivercleaner from here?

Oh, and what operating system are you running?

kmansp · Feb 6, 2004, 06:28 PM

absolutely. Wow, I appreciate your help in this matter!
This is an older compaq model. It's a Compaq Presario 900(it also says 906US on a different sticker). I had to really hunt for ram to upgrade it since it's an older model, but they finally delivered.
The driver cleaner is the first thing I tried.

At first I thought it was just Omega's drivers, but DNA's didn't work either. Are there any other drivers you think I could try out? I get the feeling that nothing but the original will work, but it's worth a shot if I can find them.
My operating system is windows XP, AMD athlon processor, 1.3 Ghz.
ALSO, you mentioned the ram adding to the video card. I'm looking at the bios setup utility as we speak. What it ACTUALLY says is VGA Memory Size, that it reserves memory space for UMA frame buffer, and I an change it to 16, 32, 64. It automatically takes memory from my ram and uses it, and I assumed it was to my video cards advantage, because whenever I go in to the DXdiag, it changes the display memory to whatever is entered here in the VGA Memory size. Also, right under this is PXE Disable/enable. For the description it says enable/disable PXE Boot Rom. It's currently disabled and I have no idea what it does.

swimtech · Feb 8, 2004, 11:55 AM

Hey kmansp,
I hope you've seen the goody page for your unit at Compaq's site, if not, link:

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwar...etype=software

A Radeon Mobility U1 - interesting...
Omegadrive's driver doesn't directly support the U1 flavor of the Radeon Mobility by name (in the 2.4.96c version anyway). You may have to use the Compaq driver, and I would try the latest version of that first (if you haven't already). Your problem though may be the way that this particular chip uses the shared ram feature of the AGP bus, and the AGP bus driver below may help that. UMA = Unified Memory Architecture, or system ram used as video ram...

The following Service Paqs might help for various issues:
SP25122 - Rom Bios update (latest file date and version)
SP25156 - AGP Bus Driver (latest file date and version)
SP24492 - Graphics driver for WinXP dated 5-23-2003 (have you tried this?)
SP22929 - Winflash utility (you may need this to flash your Rom Bios from Windows - makes me a bit nervous though - I like to flash from a boot floppy and have not used this method before...)

You may want to try the first two files in order - Bios then AGP Bus driver - and see if that helps. Laptops often require Bios updates to let them work with newer drivers and OS updates. I definitely recommend using the first two files, and run the second one (the first is likely a boot floppy image) without any backround antivirus or other non-Windows stuff running, according to its instructions - if any. Then experiment with the VGA Memory size and see what happens. You are pioneering, and pioneers run into this stuff!

The PXE thing is a setup for the network (ethernet no doubt) chip in your unit so that it can boot from a network drive. Not an issue for your problem.

Flash edit: The specs say the U1 Mobility is an IGP (integrated graphics processor - part of the chipset) with 16M of shared video memory - but that may be just the preset that your laptop came with - obviously you can change it. There is support in Omegadrive's driver for the IGP chipset in some versions.

kmansp · Feb 8, 2004, 02:34 PM

Wow, you bring up some good info. First off, I didn't even know there was an update for the laptop driver. The last time I checked(and it was a long time ago), I couldn't find one. However, looking over the description for the update, it pretty much just says that it fixes a problem playing video CD. If that's the only fix it does, I'm going to be bummed. Thanks for pointing that out, though.
I'm downloading these files and am going to try them out asap. Do you think I need the ATI U1/RS200M AGP Bus Driver for Windows XP? It says it's a windows XP enhancement. You didn't list it as needed, but it caught my eye and I figured I will ask. In any case, I'm going to download and try those first two. I'll get back to you with what happens! I'm crossing my fingers...

kmansp · Feb 8, 2004, 02:53 PM

Ok, it asks to insert a 1.44 floppy disk in to drive a, but I don't even HAVE a floppy drive. Just a CD drive.

I think it's funny that they would make this utility for all presario models and not remember that some models only have CD-roms. Is there any way around this?

kmansp · Feb 8, 2004, 02:58 PM

Well... I tried the driver update for the u1 graphics card ONLY, and I STILL got the BSOD flashed before my eyes. I'm thinking that you are right in that I have to update the bios and agp, but if it asks for a boot disk and I don't have an A drive...
Man, this is frustrating!!

The_Neon_Cowboy · Feb 8, 2004, 07:59 PM

yep sound like something with the laptop...

Quote:

Originally posted by kmansp
Well... I tried the driver update for the u1 graphics card ONLY, and I STILL got the BSOD flashed before my eyes. I'm thinking that you are right in that I have to update the bios and agp, but if it asks for a boot disk and I don't have an A drive...
Man, this is frustrating!!

but if you have acess to a cd burner you can make bootable cd's

kmansp · Feb 8, 2004, 08:38 PM

Yeah, but this program is trying to copy something specific on to a disk, not just make a boot disk. I went in to the batch file and tried to tell it to copy to my CD because I do have a cd burner, but it's not working.

swimtech · Feb 8, 2004, 11:03 PM

Aw man, sorry about the floppy drive...

The bios update file you are trying (as I figured) is trying to make a floppy image disk, a way for Compaq to make sure the software and the computer accept each other, so to speak. Especially important for bios updates...

In order to make and use a bootable CD (and the downloaded file I recommended from Compaq makes a floppy image only) you'd have to download an ISO image and use Roxio or other burn software to make the CD.

Use SP25121, in the BIOS category - not the Rompaq category, it integrates the Winflash utility with the very same bios update version and enables you to update the bios from Windows, from the hard drive. Seems the only way without a floppy or CD ISO image to work with. Was just hoping that you could use a boot floppy. Follow their instructions carefully.

The SP25156 ATI AGP bus file is the most recent version the ATI AGP bus driver you mentioned, I'm pointing you to version 1.0E. I think the one you see is 1.0B, or version 1.0E with an older file date and different file size. There are actually three of those files listed there altogether.

I pray all goes well, hang in there!!!

kmansp · Feb 10, 2004, 09:06 PM

Ok, the bios update worked!!! Thanks a lot, man! Now... the agp update. It says in order to update it, I need to find the pci-pci bridge in the device manager. Well, that is kind of vague, because i can only find pci standard host cpu bridge and ali pci to isa bridge. On both of those, when I go in to driver details, it says that the device does not have drivers or does not need them.
I feel like I'm close, though. You have any idea what exactly I'm looking for?

kmansp · Feb 10, 2004, 09:15 PM

IT WORKED IT WORKED IT WORKED!!! I CAN USE OMEGA'S DRIVERS AGAIN!!! Thank you SOOOOOOOOO much. YOu have no idea how much of a headache you saved me from!!!!

swimtech · Feb 11, 2004, 09:57 AM

YYYYEEEEEESSSS!!!

You did the work, glad to help...